Just getting finally around to doing some ambisonics (via a dolby atmos setup) and excited but got to my first hurdle which is finding plugins that can work at 64 samples or.. can at least let me use the js time adjustment delay (or similar to add enough buffer to them.

Was hoping to have it at 64 buffers (my usual) but the Sparta plugins need 128 so tempted to buy into another set if needed or if there's a workaround? Or is 128 just the lowest we can go (if we want to keep things linear?)

Thanks..

__________________subproject FRs click herenote: don't search for my pseudonym on the web. The "musicbynumbers" you find is not me or the name I use for my own music.

Started getting somewhere the other day with 7th order ambisonics mostly via the iem plugins so thanks for that.

So far, have a few other questions if any one could have a go at helping that would be much appreciated thanks!

1. Compared to vr where its very easy to localise above and behind sounds in games, so I'm not getting very good headphone positional cues for above or behind me with the binaural plugins I've tried so far (the iem one) and the js one that has many impulses in it.

I'm guessing this is because so far I've only panned using the iem panner which is strictly a volume based pan so no time based cues. My question is, are there pan plugins that will also add some positional delay between ears (haas panning) so that we have proper cues for positioning or does the binaural plugin actually try to add in the head separation anyway if a sound is above the head and to the left? I did add the iem reverb and it definitely helped me localise the direct sound via having the additional cues all around me. Any thoughts?

2. Is there a panner that can do straight front to back, top to bottom or side to side panning without first going through the height or floor speakers first (or the sides/front if it's top to bottom)?

I noticed "hemisphere panners" in the blue ripple plugins but they read like they will still utilitise the top speakers if I pan back to front? Or is this just not an effective pan in Ambisonics anyway? In dolby atmos, it works fine to pan via just the surrounds and not use the heights so I'm hoping there's a plugin to do that

Thanks guys!

__________________subproject FRs click herenote: don't search for my pseudonym on the web. The "musicbynumbers" you find is not me or the name I use for my own music.

IEM binaural plugin, as every binaural ones, uses HRTF filtering to simulate spatial cues, but you know that without personalized HRTF and/or head tracking it can be more or less acceptable...
Other ambisonics to binaural panners or converters may give different results since they may use different HRTF sets.
Doing binaural from ambisonics you combine two potentially problematic techniques ;-)

On the other hand what you describe as "not going through" but passing "above or below" is a limit of ambisonics that is not really "3D" but a hollow sphere. We would need Azimut, Elevation AND Distance coding, the later not being taken into account by the ambisonics principle.
Some algos try to create nearfield simulations to compensate from the fixed radius (and of course distance simulations for farther positions), but to my knowledge it is not yet very effective.
Other spatializations methods have not this limit, but nevertheless the HRTF are also generally not accurate for nearfield, even if you use DBAP.

I've been looking today at some tools like "dearVR pro" and the waves one and there are definitely some examples on the videos for DearVR that definitely feel behind or above me. I'm not sure yet without trying them out though whether that's the visual cues or hopefully a better use of acoustic cues from the different ear delays mixed in with later wall reflections.

I've got most GRM plugins so will check those too thanks

I've gone through quite a through of the HRTF impulses and they don't work that well for me yet but maybe it's because of using headphones (HD-600) rather than in ear ones but I thought it wouldn't be affected by the ear/Pinna shape anyway at that close range.

Regards to direct speaker to speaker panning. I guess I could try crossfading (equal power) between the same sound at the back then to the front so it's just volume based but was hoping for something that took into account some Haas delay too.

For dolby Atmos. This is mostly for games (my main job) whereby it's encoded via middleware like Fmod but I've also set up both the reasurround plugin for simple atmos decoding and then the IEM "ALLRA" decoder for going from ambisonic to my dolby atmos array (7th order for now).

My aim overall is for my personal music to be written in such a way that it can simultaneously be output to 3 formats without too much fuss. Dolby atmos, binaural and raw ambisonic for use in a vr animation/unity project at some point too. Oh and try and get a decent mixdown for stereo speakers too without too much trouble.

That might be too much to ask for without a lot of tweaking though but Readave has mentioned a few times that ambisonic mixes can work well in dolby atmos/7.1 etc. Just wish panning was a bit more specific (even at high order).

Maybe without visual cues from say a 360 video and subtle head movements you subconsciously do in VR, it's just hard to get convincing top/below and back positioning on binaural encoded headphones that are "static" without also tracking head position so that the subtle movements we make with our heads to help position sounds would be included?

(although it's missing the acoustic treatment that's going up soon and apart from the 4 Kii three's which are my mains/retirement fund if I go deaf for 5.1 surround and all 4 handle the subwoofer output too) the other speakers are a hodgepodge with my old battered BM15As for rears and cheap speakers for the height ones but might get some floor ones if all goes well too). Also, half the speakers and tv are on rails so I can slide them into couch atmos mode or for gaming too. Just needs some aesthetic love too at some point

Note: I've done the delay and volume normalisation on the speakers too as not ideal positions yet but working on that and started balancing out the timbral differences in the height speakers but not buying another 6 Kii three's for sure! also, got a Denon decoder for atmos from hdmi sources too.

__________________subproject FRs click herenote: don't search for my pseudonym on the web. The "musicbynumbers" you find is not me or the name I use for my own music.

I haven't installed it yet but I just downloaded the Facebook Ambisonic VST plugins to try out their Binaural encoding.
Like you, I've not had much success with any of the Binaural plugins I've used so far as far as creating a solid front/back and top/bottom convincing image goes. Left/right is less of a problem.

I found it helped a bit to have some kind of reverb like the Ambisonic iem one on the sound too so it had some delay difference between the dry and wet part of it. Helped to localise it.

I'll try myself too set something up in vr at some point and use the steamvr binaural stuff or Google or the Facebook one.

It might be that it's so easy to localise in vr because of the constant slight head movements we do without being conscious of them as I can even close my eyes in vr and still know exactly where a sound is above/below/behind etc.

Either that or their default ear model works much better anyway.

My dream is to be able to take these ambisonic and atmos mixes I'm doing and easily out them into binaural so that people could get the effect in headphones but not sure if that's the case yet.

Hopefully so!

__________________subproject FRs click herenote: don't search for my pseudonym on the web. The "musicbynumbers" you find is not me or the name I use for my own music.